


The Numbers Game

by Darklions3429



Series: Sinoto (Kirinon?) One-Shots [6]
Category: Sword Art Online (Anime & Manga)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, not meant to be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:48:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27140647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darklions3429/pseuds/Darklions3429
Summary: A number ticks down every time you take a step closer to your soul mate.
Relationships: Asada Shino | Sinon/Kirigaya Kazuto | Kirito, Kirigaya Kazuto | Kirito/Yuuki Asuna | Asuna
Series: Sinoto (Kirinon?) One-Shots [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1784356
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	The Numbers Game

All his life, Kazuto had been focused on a number on the underside of his forearm. Everyone was, to some degree. It was constantly counting down to the day that he’d meet his soulmate. Every step he took, the number would reduce itself by one digit—every time, without fail. As a kid, he’d run around on the track with his friends just to reduce the number some more. It wouldn’t do much, but hey, it was much-needed exercise. As he grew, the number would technically go down, but it would seemingly stay the same as the days grew on without any significant change in the number.

When the SAO incident happened, the number obviously didn’t carry over to his online avatar. So when he found Asuna and began to date her, he was ecstatic, hoping his number had counted down enough, signaling their destined meeting. The time grew, and Kirito and Asuna had grown to love each other more and more, and the days in SAO flew by without a breeze. When the momentous day came where Kirito had slain Heathcliff, also known as Akihiko Kayaba, on the seventy-fifth floor, his heart soared to new heights. With Asuna in his arms, they both were logged out into the real world to once again breathe in real air. With contact information exchanged, the two dematerialized out of the game, and their consciousnesses awoke to the sounds and smells of a hospital room. 

His relief was quickly broken at the word that Asuna had been crammed into another VRMMO. He quickly dove into another game, completely closed off from any distractions, his only goal being to rescue Asuna and finally hold her in his arms in real life. For the first time ever, he had forgotten about the number ticking down on his forearm, focusing all of his energy into saving Asuna. His heart raced as he made his way up to the top of the World Tree with the help of the Cait Sith and Sylphs, not because of the impending boss battle, but because of the woman that was waiting for him. 

After felling Nobuyuki Sugou, otherwise known as the Fairy King Oberon, he made his way as fast as humanly possible to Asuna’s hospital. One final encounter with Sugou later, he finally met his lover and held her in his arms. However, as they embraced, there was a deafening silence. The silence of realization as both of them checked their forearms. Neither of their numbers had counted down to zero. The hospital room spun around them as their thoughts and emotions following the initial shock set into their minds.

What was the meaning of all of that, then? Was all of their suffering for nothing? They had truly loved each other - why weren’t their numbers at zero? So many ‘why’ questions that were left unanswered as Kazuto backed away from Asuna, sucker-punched by the cruel lines of fate that had loomed over them. He burst out of the room in shock and tears, despair washing over his worn soul, settling into the wrinkles, and constricting his heart.

For weeks, if not months, not a word was exchanged between Kazuto and Asuna. They managed to rekindle their relationship, but their bond would never be the same. As time went on, however, the hurt of having built a skyscraper only to have it torn down within seconds weighed heavily on the both of them and they drifted apart, slowly but surely. They had become distant strangers, with the scars that they displayed on their souls a sad narrative of what they once had, and the numbers ticking down on their forearms an aggravating reminder of what they can’t be.

Kazuto fell into a depressed state, lost, spent, and broken. He had been contracted by RATH to investigate a series of real-life deaths involving another VRMMO game, which served as a distraction from his forearm and from his emotional state of unrest. He had been thrust into the industrial world of GGO, a rough and tough, gritty shooter VRMMO. His avatar, when he spawned in, was very much akin to a female’s, with the long hair to match. Kirito offhandedly noted that his hair was about as long as Asuna’s, which brought back a dull ache in his heart. 

Since this was a new game for him, Kirito had close to no equipment. What also didn’t help was the empty void that was his knowledge of firearms, meaning that he was going to go through with this investigation with his ass hanging out of his pants. He got a lucky break, however, and he managed to get a blue-haired girl that he had found as he was walking around to help him get started. The girl, whose name was Sinon, went with him to go buy some equipment with what money he had to start with. Kirito, being the thrill-seeker he was in VRMMOs, decided to try his hand at a minigame that had a huge pot of money inside of it from the hundreds of people who had attempted it before him.

To Sinon’s (and Kirito’s) surprise, the long-haired newbie blew away the game, winning millions of cash from the machine. The result was Kirito being able to buy some pretty high-class weaponry and gear to start off the game with. Kirito was slowly beginning to break out of his depressive slump, finding great fun in this new game. He and Sinon both registered for the Bullet of Bullets, and after an encounter with the suspected perpetrator of the real-life death that happened through killing an in-game character, he finessed his way through the preliminaries, making his way to the finals after an intense duel with the blue-haired sniper. 

Kazuto opened his eyes in the real world, laying, yet again, in a hospital bed, covered in electrodes that hooked him up to an EKG. The nurse that was watching over him helped detach him and sent him on his way. Although they hadn’t known each other for very long at that point, Kazuto enjoyed Sinon’s company (despite getting a heavy slap to the face after an impromptu gender reveal) and wished to get closer to her, if not become her friend. He checked his forearm and it had not counted down to zero, meaning that he still had a ways to go to find his soulmate.

When the BoB had finally arrived, the laser swordsman and sniper had teamed up after witnessing a horrible fight (that Kirito presumed was another IRL death), making an unlikely team of sheer opposites. As their time together elapsed in the BoB, the emotional distance between them closed as Kirito began to enter his role as her protector, both as a part of their strategy and as well as emotionally. There was something in the back of her mind that allowed her to open her doors for this boy that she had barely just met and slapped the day before. Kirito, in turn, opened up to her, revealing the blood he also carried on his hands. The pair held each other in the cave they took cover in, sharing their burdens together. 

A newfound bond of trust built, the duo carried onward through the rest of the tournament, meeting the perpetrator of the IRL killings and taking him down, leaving the sniper and swordsman the two remaining competitors. While deciding how to end off the tournament and exchanging contact information and names, Sinon pulled out and primed a grenade, tossing it to Kirito, to his confusion. Upon being told that it was a “present grenade”, Kirito reeled back in shock as Sinon embraced him with a tackle, playfully laughing all the way down as their avatars were obliterated by the high-explosive grenade. This forced the system to crown both of them as the winner, and the two were launched back into the real world. 

Kazuto snapped awake in the real world after being ejected out of the game. A very prominent tingling in his stomach screamed at him, immediately alarming Kazuto. He had to check on Shino. He threw on his clothes as fast as he could and bolted out of the hospital room, dead sprinting towards Shino’s apartment. Guided only by his phone’s directions and the dim light from the screen, he bombed down the streets toward an unfamiliar destination.

His phone barked at him, telling him that he had arrived. Seeing that her light was on, he approached the door, not expecting anything unusual. He had never been more wrong. His ears suddenly became attuned to a definite  _ thump _ , a shout, and a desperate scramble toward the door. As he reached toward the door, he heard a body slam against it, causing him to pull away, unsure of what to do next. He waited until the sounds of the struggle were farther away, and that’s when he made his entrance.

He kicked down the door with a confident shout, drawing the attention of both parties inside the house. As he scanned the room, his body went into autopilot. He saw a blonde, long-haired boy, at least one or two years younger than him in the entrance hallway, standing over a brown-haired girl with crooked glasses, holding what looked to be a medical syringe, seemingly threatening her with it. Before he knew what he was doing, Kazuto stepped forward and launched his knee upward, colliding with the boy’s nose. He felt the cartilage crunch beneath his knee and the assailant cried out in pain, tears fogging up his vision as he stumbled backward to regain his posture. 

Seeing the new obstacle in front of his goal, the blonde stumbled toward Kazuto and tackled him, sending the two boys to the ground in a struggle, ending up in the bedroom area. Kazuto attempted to retreat and stand up but was quickly caught by the blonde and he was sent to the ground once again, this time landing with his back up against the side of the nearby bed. Having hit his head on the way down, Kazuto was disoriented, black spots briefly filling his vision, leaving a perfect opening for the attacker to make his strike. He brought down the syringe into Kazuto’s chest and pressed down on the button, sending the deadly serum into his chest. A second later, a mound of coffee hair appeared in Kazuto’s blurry line of sight as a powerful crash was heard, followed by an ear-piercing shriek of agony as the blonde boy went unconscious and slumped against the floor. 

Kazuto sat leaning against the bed, his heartbeat shaking the entire room and his breath almost sucking the room dry of oxygen. The glasses-clad girl motioned for permission to lift up his shirt, and Kazuto nodded, too exhausted and pumped-up on adrenaline for words. As if by God’s grace, the spot where the blond boy attempted to inject Kazuto with the nerve agent was covered by a hard, plastic electrode still stuck to his body. The serum dripped down from it, and Shino, as Kazuto reasoned her out to be, grabbed a nearby rag and wiped it off of him. Within minutes, police were called, the attacker was cuffed and taken away in a police cruiser, and all was quiet once again.

The pair stood in Shino’s doorway, unsure of what to do next. Kazuto turned toward the girl to ask her if she was okay, but the words were lost as Shino latched onto Kazuto, crying into his chest. Kazuto felt her shudder with every sob that exited her body, he felt her inner turmoil with every breath she took in. He held her there for quite some time, gently stroking her back and her hair in an attempt to calm her. Shino drew away from Kazuto, allowing for the pair to get a good look at each other for the first time. 

Shino didn’t look much different from her GGO avatar, save for the brown hair and the glasses. Kazuto, however, was completely new to her. His soft features, kind, aged eyes, and his warm smile brought a contrast of emotions to her body, radiating from her stomach, arms, and then cheeks. It was an odd, tingling feeling that turned into a pleasant blanket of comfort over her. In short, he was beautiful. Mixed with the adrenaline that she had just coursed through her body and the fact that he had just saved her life, the girl quickly developed feelings that she had never really felt before or thought about to begin with. 

Kazuto, on the other hand, saw this small, trembling girl, clinging onto him. He was filled with an overwhelming sensation that he had felt before with a different girl. After what she had just been through, in her past, during the BoB, and twenty minutes prior, he made a promise to himself that he’d protect this girl until his last breath. He didn’t care what his number said---he’d stick by her side for as long as she wanted him to. He guided her further into her home and to her bed, gently motioning for her to lay down and rest. After making sure the windows were locked and the blinds closed, he turned to make his way out the door when he was stopped by a small voice from around the corner.

“What was that?”

“Could… could you stay with me tonight? I… I don’t feel safe enough to be alone,” Shino mumbled, extremely withdrawn about her selfish request.

“Of course! Let me just text my sister,” Kazuto responded, pulling out his phone. In reality, he was quite relieved that she had asked him to stay. He probably wouldn’t have gotten a wink of sleep if she hadn’t. 

Kazuto sat down in the chair next to Shino’s desk, awkwardly looking around the room. He pulled up his phone once more to check the time when he finally glanced at the number on his arm; he had forgotten all about it. Given what it had become, it was rendered nearly unnoticeable. It had gone down to zero. A flurry of thoughts breezed past Kazuto. When? Where? Why? Who? Then he considered his situation and looked at the girl sitting across the room. She was staring at her forearm as well, in a bewildered state. The two met eyes as very late realization struck both of them. Their hearts beat in sync with each other as Kazuto got up from his chair and made his way over to Shino. 

All of the loneliness and despair that had gnawed at Kazuto’s heart had melted away, leaving behind a tender and aching soul, filled only with desire for the girl in front of him. In his entire time gaming, zero meant bad things. Zero health meant that he was dead, zero ammunition meant that he couldn’t fire, so on and so forth. However, for the first time in his life, Kazuto was saying silent prayers to whatever god was watching over him for the zero on his forearm.

**Author's Note:**

> If y'all are confused about how it ended with Shino (even though they met in-game), the counter didn't tick down inside of the game, and Kazuto didn't realize that until he actually met Shino in person.
> 
> Anyways! I'm just doing prompts and my own stuff for the time being until I can actually sit down and think without having to worry about medic stuff. This is mostly just me letting off steam. It's a little all-over-the-place, but I hope you enjoy it anyway!


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